Friday, 20 February 2015

This is nice. In 1899, Winston Churchill was 25, an aspiring politician, and the author of a couple of books. He was not, however, the most famous Winston Churchill around. That was the now largely forgotten, but at the time best-selling, American novelist... Winston Churchill. Aware of this, the British Winston Churchill wrote to his namesake as follows:

Mr. Winston Churchill presents his compliments to Mr. Winston Churchill, and begs to draw his attention to a matter which concerns them both. [...] He has no doubt that Mr. Winston Churchill will recognise from this letter — if indeed by no other means — that there is grave danger of his works being mistaken for those of Mr. Winston Churchill. He feels sure that Mr. Winston Churchill desires this as little as he does himself. In future to avoid mistakes as far as possible, Mr. Winston Churchill has decided to sign all published articles, stories, or other works, ‘Winston Spencer Churchill,’ and not ‘Winston Churchill’ as formerly. He trusts that this arrangement will commend itself to Mr. Winston Churchill, and he ventures to suggest, with a view to preventing further confusion which may arise out of this extraordinary coincidence, that both Mr. Winston Churchill and Mr. Winston Churchill should insert a short note in their respective publications explaining to the public which are the works of Mr. Winston Churchill and which those of Mr. Winston Churchill.

To which the American Winston Churchill replied:

Mr. Winston Churchill is extremely grateful to Mr. Winston Churchill for bringing forward a subject which has given Mr. Winston Churchill much anxiety. Mr. Winston Churchill appreciates the courtesy of Mr. Winston Churchill in adopting the name of ‘Winston Spencer Churchill’ in his books, articles, etc. Mr. Winston Churchill makes haste to add that, had he possessed any other names, he would certainly have adopted one of them.

Sunday, 15 February 2015

I know it's hard to imagine, but beneath the impossibly slick looking surface of John and Kevin's Sunday Papers, with its sky-high production values, glamorous locations, and billion dollar cast, lie ordinary fallible human beings who occasionally make mistakes.

Thursday, 5 February 2015

Happy Fifth of February! Here's a little song Susannah Pearse and I wrote in honour of this deeply unspecial day...

(Yes, I know it's some peoples' birthdays. Doesn't make it any more special, I'm afraid. Every day is some peoples' birthdays.)

However, this particular Fifth of February is at least a fraction merrier than most, because today is the launch of the complete and utter definitive A to Z Cabin Pressure CD box set! Here they are, all fourteen of them:

The discs include:

- All 26 episodes (well, technically 27, but I like to think of Zurich as one two-part episode. It's just neater) in correct, alphabetical order.

- A bonus half hour in which producer David interviews me, mainly about odd little references in the show; and we introduce such things as:

- Some deleted clips and scenes, including Martin and Douglas talking about their fathers in St Petersburg, and Martin X-raying the geese at the end of Uskerty.

- The little monologues I wrote just for the audience at the very first recording, in which each character introduces themselves.

- Two specially written trailers for series 2 of the show, one featuring Stephanie, the other Benedict.

- One 'blooper'. I know you wanted more, but for some reason they generally don't really come across in audio only. But this one does, and it's a good one...

Then there's the 32 page booklet, which includes:

- Casting and transmission details of all the episodes, obviously.

- Strange little doodles, by me, of things like oboes and green bottles and stuffed sheep and cricketers carrying a fire-truck, all around the above.

- A hand-drawn world map of all the destinations, also by me.

- An annotated diagram of the layout of Gerti; including secret location of the asbestos gloves; untampered with armrests; and the captain's seat for the captain to sit in, because he's the captain. Yep, me again.

- The official MJN Air Games Compendium - a list of all the games played by the crew through the show.

- The Rules of The Travelling Lemon.

- The Rules of Yellow Car. Well, the rule.

- The five double page spreads, one for each main character, showing their notebooks, wall charts, manuals or diaries; as published in the individual CD releases, but now in glorious technicolour, which means Arthur's jelly-babies are finally recognisable, and don't just look like weird stones.

- Eleven hidden lemons.

- A page of plot ideas which never made it into episodes, with explanations as to why not.

- A page of my notebook from the writing of Zurich.

- A double page spread of photos of the cast rehearsing and recording Zurich.

- Two high quality staples (used)

So, yes. We tried to pull out all the stops for this. Hope you like it. If you want to discover whether you like it or not, you can do so by buying it from Pozzitive, the BBC, high street book and music shops, or even big bad Amazon:

FAQ

I already have the CDs! Can I get Zurich separately, or are you trying to make me buy the whole show all over again, you gang of twisters?

Not at all. Both series 4 and Zurich are available to buy separately, like so:

What about the booklet and the bonus material? Can I get that separately?

It's definitely going to be released in America, we think in April. I don't know about the rest of the world. But you can always order it from Britain and get it shipped to you.

I am young, and have never even heard of CDs. Are they those things Victorians played on gramophones, in their zeppelins?

That's right, yes. You can of course also still get all of Cabin Pressure by download, from iTunes or wherever else you get your music.

Why are you using Amazon links? Don't you know they're the baddies?

Because they tend to have the cheapest price, and it seems unfair not to point at the cheapest price. Also, because they're the single source most likely to have it in stock. The BBC shop, for instance, is currently sold out, even though it's the day of release. But you are of course welcome to buy it from whatever shop your taste and conscience dictate.

Is this the longest blog post you've ever written?

I don't know. It's right up there, isn't it?

Don't you feel bad that it's essentially just a huge long advert?

...Well, I didn't. But now I do. There's the song, though! Don't forget it started with a song!

Wednesday, 31 December 2014

I've said before that I often give episodes working titles alongside the geographical ones, to help keep my mind on the theme. Zurich's was 'Graduation Day'. My starting point was, why is this the final episode? I knew that everyone would still be doing their respective jobs at the end, so why won't we be following them any more? Because, I decided, as well as the straight-forward happy endings involving gold and marriage; there needed to be another, intangible level of happy ending, in which all five of the crew graduated, in one way or another, from being sitcom characters. We're not going to be following the adventures of OJS Air, or of Martin in Switzerland, because while they’ll still be having fun and playing games, they won't be doing the sorts of things that kept them getting into sitcom-episode-sized scrapes, and that ultimately stemmed from something out-of-joint in their lives. They’ve grown up. Except Arthur. But even Arthur, a little bit.

Martin Crieff was a sitcom character because i) he desperately wanted to do something he fundamentally wasn’t very good at, and ii) he was over-promoted, under-confident and over-compensating. In the last two series we've seen him grow in confidence - and competence - to the point that in Yverdon, it is (I hope) plausible that a major airline could offer him a proper job. There was never any question for me that for Martin, a happy ending had to involve him taking that job. To reject a real career, with a future and prospects (not to mention being handy for Vaduz) in favour of the security blanket of MJN - even with a salary - would be a failure. Certainly MJN is like a family to him, but if it is, he’s the elder child… and what children have to do eventually is grow up, and move out. Not that the security blanket isn’t tempting, of course; so for Martin, graduation was about overcoming his melt-down at the auction, and realising both that he can leave home, and that he should do.

The thing that has kept Douglas a sitcom character - and I've had to bite my tongue so many times not to say this in any of the previous Bear Fact posts, because to me it's so fundamental to his character, but I didn't want to mention it until Zurich aired - is that he's not the captain. So much of his persona, his put-downs, his scheming, stems from the fact that he used to be a captain, he ought to be a captain… and he's not. He pretends not to care about it, but we see as early as Fitton that he cares deeply. The natural order of things, certainly as he sees it, is that he should be in charge, the father figure in the family… and technically, he's not. I’ve always thought that the running joke of strangers assuming Douglas is Captain and Martin F.O. must have been at least as painful for Douglas as it was for Martin. He’s just better at hiding it… and better in general at constructing a super-human persona to hide behind.

So, the thing Douglas needed to graduate from being in a sitcom was to become a captain again… and the test he needed to pass in order to earn that was to act like one. Not just take charge and make decisions in a crisis, but do so openly and honestly. Douglas prefers to hang back, let other people make mistakes, work out the 'something clever' he's going to do in secret, and then present it with a flourish. He's a goal-hanger. This time, he has to act on his sense that it's imperative to get Gerti back before he's worked out all the details. He has to risk his own money, and more importantly, he has to admit to Carolyn and the others that he’s making it up as he goes along. He's not trying to impress anyone with how clever he is, he's trying to do the best thing for the crew - like a captain. And finally, if the crew is a family, he has to be a good parent. He has to look after the younger sibling; and he has to help the older one leave home, by sharing the secret of his persona.

Carolyn had the shortest distance to go to graduate. She's always been eminently capable of running her business, and she remains so; just as she has always been an excellent parent, both literally and metaphorically. So, although I was keen that she, like the other three, should do 'something clever' to save Gerti - in her case, it's manipulating the auctioneer to sell her to Bruce not Gordon - her real graduation is in her personal life. She needs to say 'I love you' to Herc, because the Beatrice and Benedick schtick is all very well - and I'm sure will continue throughout their marriage – but it’s time for her to accept that she can show vulnerability to Herc without suffering for it.

And in order for her to believe that, Herc needs to stop showing off, and actually work hard to persuade her that he is genuine, and she is safe with him. Which he does with the ‘white hair’ speech; but more importantly by putting his money where his mouth is, and accepting both a pay cut and a demotion if that’s what it takes for them to be together. To put it another way, both Herc and Carolyn needed to stop sparring, and work out which one of them actually was the alpha dog. And the answer, of course, is Carolyn.

And Arthur… well, Arthur is never going to grow up, as the ice cream van shows us. But luckily, he’s entirely happy as he is, so he doesn’t need to. So, graduation for him (apart from successfully over-riding a Code Red) is all about dealing with the only thing that’s wrong in his life – his father. Arthur’s test was to stand up to the false (if biological) father in his life, firstly at the auction and secondly and most importantly by remembering his grandmother’s name, realising that he will never, ever have a genuine father / son conversation with Gordon Shappey; and renouncing him once and for all in favour of the two genuine father figures in his life – and in particular, the one who has always looked out for and defended him, even as he mocks him; the one with whom he can discuss the dames and the horses over a few pineapple juices; and the one on whom he can utterly rely to do something clever, and make everything alright.

And because they all did those things, lo, the God of sitcom was pleased with them, and rewarded them with golden buns for tea, and an annoying sunset to fly into… but only as far as a destination beginning AA.

Wednesday, 24 December 2014

Well, here it is… please take your seats, and prepare for landing. Very much hope you enjoy it, and that you approve of the ending. But, whether you do or not, thank you very, very much for all your comments, poems, jokes, support, drawings, praise and occasional fury over the past six years, and most of all…

Tuesday, 23 December 2014

I won't be doing Farewell Bear Facts for Zurich for a few days, partly to give people a chance to listen to it on iPlayer, and partly because it's Christmas. But feel free to leave your comments here, and in the similar post I'll put up for part two tomorrow.

Monday, 22 December 2014

I decided when I wanted to end Cabin Pressure in between the Christmas special (M) and the start of series 3 (N). At that point I had written two series and a special - 13 episodes - and I noticed that if I could get the BBC to give me the same again, that would take me to the end of the alphabet. So, all of series 3 and 4 were written with some of the events of Yverdon and Zurich in mind. Not that that informed every line, or even every episode, but overall, I knew my job was to get Martin to the point where he could - with great difficulty, and by an extraordinary effort, pass a job interview at a 'proper' airline'… and poor old Douglas to the point where he knows exactly how Martin felt in Abu Dhabi. Meanwhile, Carolyn was heading to the point where she was resigned, if not cheerful, about giving up MJN; and indeed prepared to encourage Martin to leave it - but with another, Herc-shaped dilemma to solve instead.

I like Oskar's line about having tuned out for Martin's big speech. I knew the interview had to climax with one, because both we and Martin needed it, but I was never quite comfortable with it clinching the job for him, because a) it felt a bit of a Hollywood ending, and b) that isn't how airline recruiting works. So, I retuned the character of Oskar, who previously had just been another interviewer, there throughout, and pretty much interchangeable with Elise, into an unpredictable but shrewd CEO who had the power to shortcut the whole process and hire Martin on the spot. But, as he says, he doesn't do that because of the 'hero speech' - he's already made up his mind by then. And the things that get Martin the job offer (apart from his ability and willingness to learn the manuals, which he's always had) are all things he's learned to do at MJN. Plus, his getting Oskar to stay in the room. Which again, I don't think he could have done before he met Douglas, or Carolyn.

In other words, the journey to Yverdon was to get the main characters to the point where Martin could plausibly say 'I would like you to give me ten minutes to change your mind'; Douglas could plausibly say 'I am the supreme commander of this vessel', and Carolyn could plausibly say 'It's only money.'

Meanwhile, Arthur... eats a dragon-fruit. Well, some characters are more prone to complex emotional development than others. But Arthur does have perhaps the key line in the whole episode, near the beginning:

'Good luck, Skip! I hope you get the job! But I also hope you stay with us! So overall, I hope, er ... I don’t knowwhatI hope!'

My aim was to bring the audience to the same point, especially once Martin gets the offer. If he turns it down, he's taking a backward step, away from financial security, the job he's always wanted, and the most promising romance of his life. But if he takes it, he's not only leaving a life he now enjoys with his closest friends, but forcing the closure of MJN, and thus surely changing all three of their lives for the worse. So, what's he to do? What do you hope he does? Do you know what you hope? Well, almost two years later, get ready to find out...

DELETED LINES

3.MARTIN:I'm afraid I'm too
much of a perfectionist. I try too hard to do every aspect of my job really
well.

4.DEROCHE:That's your
greatest weakness?

5.MARTIN:Yes.

6.DEROCHE:So, if you joined
us here, how would you work on improving it?

7.MARTIN:Well ... I suppose
... I would try to do everything more ... badly.

Sunday, 21 December 2014

You remember how, way back in the Cremona bear facts, I said that we would come to the most difficult to write episode of all eventually? Well... welcome to Xinzhou. Xinzhou was an absolute nightmare to write, or rather to rewrite, culminating in a marathon 36 hour rewriting session through the night up to the very morning of the recording, during which heroic producer David got a sleeping bag sent to him from home so he could sleep in the Pozzitive office while I wrote, and also … the thing for which he has never quite forgiven me… was forced to eat a sandwich from Subway.

There were three main things that made it so hard. Firstly, it was another bottle episode, like Fitton and Limerick, which as I've said elsewhere I find the hardest to write. Secondly, separately it also had quite a lot of hard work to do getting all the characters set up for Yverdon, and restating the stakes: Martin cannot go on as he is at MJN. But MJN cannot continue without Martin. Eventually, the way I found to do this without having everyone just sit around telling each other things they already know, was to put the focus on Douglas. And indeed, in a quiet way, this is an episode all about Douglas - the others all have fairly basic Wants about getting to sleep or fixing the plane; but it's Douglas who goes on an important journey from discouraging Martin from leaving, so as to save his own job; to realising it's his duty to encourage him. And, of course, to fix everyone's problems by doing something clever… by finally making Martin give him his hat.

The third problem, though, was entirely my own fault. Once I got the 'stuck on Gerti overnight' idea, I initially thought this would be more like Limerick - constantly flicking between various games and conversations as they tried to keep themselves amused. And I had a lot of ideas in my various notebooks and early drafts of other episodes for games and stupid 'how many otter…' style conversations that I'd never used. So why not, I thought to myself, gather them all together, and make an episode out of them? Because, I ought to have immediately answered myself, whilst kicking myself hard for even asking such a stupid question, that NEVER WORKS. On two other non-CP-related occasions I've tried to write something by assembling various bits cut from other shows or drafts and trying to stitch them together into a sort of Frankenstein's monster, and on both occasions it's gone about as well as it went for Dr. Frankenstein. And the same thing happened this time. The bits had been written at different times, they had subtly different moods, they involved different stages of the characters (Series 2 non-Arthur characters, as I've been saying a lot in these posts, do not act the same way as series 4 characters) , and no matter how I tried to rewrite and finesse them, it didn't work. It wasn't like an episode of Cabin Pressure - it was like one of those clip show episodes US sitcoms sometimes do. So, after a crisis meeting with producer David… I threw out almost everything, and started again. Hence the mad scramble to the very brink of the deadline, and beyond, as I ran quite chronically out of time. So… you can imagine how delighted I am that when a fan site did a poll, Xinzhou was voted their favourite episode of series 4 - and I know a lot of people have it as their favourite overall. Believe me, that did not seem a likely scenario at 5am on January 6th 2013...

DELETED (OR I THINK AMENDED, TECHNICALLY) SCENE

DOUGLAS I’m sorry you’ll miss your date, Martin.

MARTIN It wasn’t a date.

CAROLYN Did you have a date?

MARTIN No.

DOUGLAS Yes.

CAROLYN Well, who with? Tell all!

MARTIN There’s nothing to tell. She’s very nice, but… our jobs are too different, and we live too far away, and it’ll never work, so…

CAROLYN Oh dear. Where does she live?

MARTIN Vaduz.

CAROLYN Oh, in Lichtenstein? Did you meet her when you picked up that awful Princess?

We interrupt this stream of Bear Facts to let you know that, by coincidence, I am doing something you can listen to, or even watch, over each of the next four days.

22nd December. Two today. In the morning, m'Souvenir Programme colleague Carrie Quinlan and I will be doing a short and Christmassy sketch during the Today programme. This, and all the things listed here, will be available on iPlayer once they've been aired. I'm not going to do links, because you're all terribly clever people, and can find them for yourself.

In the evening, I make my second appearance in this series of one of my favourite shows, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. (I stepped in at short notice for an indisposed Barry Cryer, by the way, which is why I'm not credited - but don't worry, he's absolutely fine.)

23rd December. There's this sitcom I write called 'Cabin Pressure', about pilots. Anyway, the first part of the two part show finale will go out at 6.30 on Radio 4. Incidentally, there are spoilers absolutely everywhere. The audience who saw the recording in February have diligently and heroically kept quiet for ten months. The papers previewing the show… not so much. If you haven't been spoilt yet, and don't want to be, I advise you not to read or listen to anything you see promoting the show. Except this. This is fine.

Christmas Eve. The second part airs. For what it's worth, I don't think I've seen any spoilers relating to events in this half. For instance, the scene the BBC has put out is from part one, and if you've seen the cast list, all of those characters have made their appearance by the end of part one. So, even if you've seen spoilers, you still have some surprises in store.

Christmas Day. m'Souvenir Programme Colleague Margaret Cabourn-Smith and I make a (brief) final appearance as Miranda's annoying friends Chris and Alison in 'Miranda' on BBC1.

Saturday, 20 December 2014

- Arthur's irresistible helpfulness meeting Wendy's immoveable resistance to being helped is one of my favourite Arthur scenes. Partly because Arthur affects and furthers the plot for reasons other than clottishness. Partly because I love the friendliness that develops between them once Wendy realises she's met her match. And partly… because I got to perform a two-handed scene with Prunella Scales!

- There is a good reason why the pronunciation of Caitlin's name changes between Limerick and Wokingham. It's not the after-the-fact one I came up with in the blog post above, although that one will do in the characters' world. Unfortunately for you… I cannot tell you what the real reason is. I know, maddening of me. But true.

- Nice, amongst all the character development and series arc-i-ness going on these days, to have a nice old-fashioned C.P. subplot about trying to win a silly game. And nice that it's Douglas and Carolyn doing it for a change, rather than Douglas and Martin.

Deleted scene. This is an interesting one, because rather than being cut for reasons as time, as usual, I requested Producer David to cut it, because I felt it was a mistake on my part. Here it is:

CAROLYNOh, not at all. I know what it’s like… well, you’ve met Ruth. She still makes me feel like a five year old.

ARTHURI’m glad I don’t have an older brother. Although, also, now I think about it, an older brother would have been great.

MARTINOnly by a year! And he’s always acted like he’s older! And he’s so much bigger than me! And he’s got that moustache!

So, that works perfectly well as a sitcommy joke; and it's certainly true that there are siblings where the younger acts as if they were the older and/or vice-versa. But, ultimately, in this case, I didn't and don't think it was truthful. Simon's behaviour - which, as I've said before, I was keen to make irritating but not horrible - is so much influenced, in my mind, by the fact that he's an older brother who can't recognise that he and his siblings are all equal adults now; and so treats Martin as if he was still a kid, that to remove the root of that just for the sake of a capper at the end of the episode felt cheap. So, to be clear, the order of the Crieff siblings is: Simon, Martin, Caitlin. (Martin is such a middle child…)

Princess Theresa was a real risk. Introducing a new romantic interest for a main character, only four episodes from the end, and expecting the audience to care, and to want them to get together, was quite a tall order; and giving her such a high-concept identity as a foreign Princess even more so. I felt there was a definite risk of shark-jumping. 'Oh, right, so Martin's going out with a Princess now? Fine…'

In the end, though, I haven't heard many complaints about Theresa, and I have heard quite a lot of enthusiasm, which I think is largely down to Matilda Ziegler's fantastic, warm, intelligent, amused performance. The other thing that helps, though, is that though the character is new; the situation is set up in Newcastle - Theresa is quite a lot like Linda Fairburn, but with the crucial differences that a) Theresa quite fancies Martin and b) Martin has changed between N and V. He's still going to make a stammering fool of himself, of course, but… well, he truly does earn that medal for teasing recognition. Speaking of which, here is a Deleted Medal:

THERESASuper,
that gets you the Holy Cross of St Luzius. Have you been to Triesenberg?

MARTINI… I
don’t think so.

THERESADo you want to go to
Triesenberg? Basically, we have this whole medal foreigners can get for going
to Triesenberg. I think it was some kind of eighteenth century tourism thing. I
tell you what, you can have it for now, if you don’t go to Triesenberg in ten
years, send it back.

And here's another deleted scene, in which Martin gives Maxi some advice:

MARTINMaxi…
what does the Sheik of Qatar do, exactly?

MAXI(SULLEN)
It’s not just him. It’s all the boys. They laugh at me all the time. And they call me
Serena.

MARTINWhy do
they do that?

MAXII don’t
know.

MARTINWas it
after you told them to call your Your Serene Majesty?

MAXI…I can’t
remember.

MARTINLook, can
I give you some advice?

MAXIYou? But you’re a commoner!

MARTINEven so. Look, I used to be in the air cadets.
Well, you know that. And I was the first in my flight to become a Junior
Corporal. And, and it’s just good military discipline to address people by
rank, rather than name, or… anything else.

MAXIOf course.

MARTINYes. But,
looking back, even though I was technically right, I sort of wish I hadn’t
insisted.

MAXIWouldn’t they
call you it?

MARTINNo, no
they would. They wouldn’t stop
calling me it. I mean… there are people I see when I go back home who still
call me Junior Corporal. What I mean is, the thing to remember about bullies-

MAXII know, I
know, ‘they’re cowards really, you’ve just got to stand up to them.’

MARTINNo, no.
Some of them are cowards, but some of them really aren’t. No, the thing about
bullies is, they do it for fun.

MAXIHow does
that help me?

MARTINWell, it
gives you a strategy. Be boring to bully.

MAXIHow?

MARTINDon’t
react much. Don’t try really hard not to react, because that’s fun to watch.
But otherwise… just sort wait for it to finish.